Inspiration of the day

My last weekend has been a little tough. But I am fortunate enough to have friends to help me out. This is how I’ve tumbled upon this story: a friend of mine sent it to me.

At the age of 34, Ed Stafford has just become the first man to walk the length of the Amazon river, in South America, from the source (the summit of Nevado Mismi, in Peru) to the sea. This makes a total of 6500 km, that he started to walk on 2nd April 2008. He reached its ultimate goal, the mouth of the river in Brazi, on 9th August 2010, after 859 days of walking. "It's amazing to be here, it proves we can do anything!", he was pleased to say on his arrival.
Attacked by scorpions, locked in tribes and even accused of murder: his journey has not been easy. Carrying a satellite phone and a laptop in his luggage, he kept reporting his adventures on his blog and on Twitter, with the aim of using his expedition to educate its readers about the dangers that threaten the Amazon rainforest and its inhabitants.

Stafford now uses his experience to inspire and motivate people to achieve their own personal goals, and to show that it is possible to succeed, no matter which seemingly insurmountable hardship we are faced to. “My aim is to inspire others and to make people feel that they have a connection to the Amazon, its wonders and its problems. I also hope to motivate others to believe they can achieve their dreams, by listening to my story of what it took to strive to become the first man ever to walk the entire length of the Amazon River.”

He will not benefit of a return to normal life for very long, since he already planned to conduct another expedition in September 2011. Good luck, Ed Stafford!

It has a number of people that nothing can stop them when it concerns their deepest convictions! I now have a lot to meditate, and batteries of positivity to recharge!

Thank you, Eric. Maybe I am throwing you some strings, but you just thrown me a whole skein right there! ;)
Thank you Hana, for shining and for sending me your good vibes!
Thank you SuperForest, ‘cause I can always count on you to make me see things clearer!

IN STRENGHT AND HOPE,
Marie-Eve

An amazing summer!

Happy Wednesday, my dear friends!

You probably noticed that I’ve been off from writing for a bit more than two weeks… My month of July has been super but happily busy! By the way, I am definitely having the greatest summer ever! And I do really hope that you are enjoying yours as much!

You must be asking "But what is she doing that is so great?" Ha! I’m happy you asked! ;) Let me tell you…

It all started with my move back to Montreal city in last May. Then I did much with my new roomate and best friend Claude-Emilie: a lot of very long walks in town...

and a few pic-nics and frisbee-football-soccer playing in parks.

Where all became even much more thrilling, is when I travelled to Kauai, learned a bit about permaculture and connected with new friends, feeling like I'd just found back, accross the ocean, the family that I had lost sight of at the end of a previous life. My heart suddenly began to feel much lighter.

When I came back here, a gift was waiting for me: I spent a wonderful time with an angel. Her name is Olivia, she is my little niece and she will be 1 year-old next weekend! I babysat her for the first time, and this has been for four amazing days! She brings me a lot of peace and she radically brings me into the "NOW".

This leads us to the month of July. I celebrated my 31st anniversary on the 1st and, spreaded onto a couple of weeks, I attended to many festivals, as the latest: the Osheaga Music and Art Festival, where I’ve saw, among others, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros performing on stage. AWESOME! You can read my report of the event on SuperForest.org by clicking HERE.

Finally, I closed this very hot month in attending to two huge, but REALLY HUGE, events of camping. The first one was the Space Gathering and, the latest, the Rainbow Gathering. This last activity is the one that has contributed the most -beside my trip to Zero One, of course- to my ongoing transformation process. It has been another wonderful surprise, and I felt just like if I had found another, a third, family! See, I now feel like I have family members all over the world! YAY! To my eyes, it is coming true now : ONE BIG FAMILY. THE ONENESS (it is kinda the subtitle of my blog, it’s time to refer to it!). This sounds so sweet to my ears!

Now, I am just waiting to get pictures taken by friends (who probably still are in the woods there, or still on their raft, if it didn't sink!) to share more of this event with you guys.

Until I get those, let’s go play outside! Have an incredible month of August everyone!
MUCH LOVE TO ALL OF LOVE YOU!

The kind of heroes

There is a group of musicians/singers that I am listening to a lot since a couple of weeks, see months. These guys are called The Makepeace Brothers, and besides the fact that I like their name (since they are real brothers and that it is their real last name, no joke), I love their catchy songs and their harmonious voices.

There is one of their song that moves me even more than the other ones. This song, bluring my eyes and swelling my heart at each listening, is called "Hero". Okay, there is also "Lonely Days", but for completly other reasons! :P

Thus, here it is, "Hero". Yep, you well noticed! It is the song that inspired me the title of the present post.

Let's now get to the main reason for me to write this post: I wanted to take a moment to tell you, YOU, my dearest friends -the ones I know, the ones I don't know yet- that you are all inspiring me so much! Every single day. Thank you for contributing to improve our beautiful world, for contributing to this «third revolution of our human story»! Thank you for inspiring me!

You definitely ARE the kind of hero we need! Seriously. Think about it for a moment. Take this sentence and stick it in bold letters on your miror. And while you're there, why not doing an incredible superhero sexy move?! Just do it every morning! Alriiiight!! Let's be superheroes together!

Now, for the Makepeace Brothers, you really should buy their CDs from their website: they have way more of good stuff than what we can find on the web! I promise, you won't be disapointed!

And hey, while I'm thinking about it: this is the best occasion to share this other amazing song and video, made by SuperForester April performing a LOVELY song that she wrote for all SuperForesters around the world! It is in my top five of things I like to refer to, to lift me up when I'm feeling a little blue. Cheers and thank you, dear April for this so touching and catchy song!

HAND IN HAND IN THIS GREAT JOURNEY,
LOVE!

The sound of love - Give Love - MC Yogi

In the "Weekend updates" previous post, I've presented you an indian chanting video, which made me think about an other song, from MC Yogi, a singer I've discovered this year. Here is a remix he did and which made me laugh a lot, since I already knew the original chant:



And here is the video I first intended to share with you as "The Sound Of Love":


What a catchy song, right?! Don't you suddenly feel needy to give love away?
LOVE LOVE LOVE, MY FRIENDS!
♥

Power to choose, Power to BE

Good morning, dear readers!
Here is something I want to share with you. Terces Engelhart and her husband Matthew are a sources of inspiration for me. They are the owner of Cafe Gratitude AND the teachers of great workshops on relationship, abundance and awakening. Nope, I've never met them, and I never attended to one of their classes yet. So how can they inspire me? Han! There are things in life that we can not explain! I've read and heard a lot on them, and this is one really great writing, from Terces's blog that will help you to feel what I can't describe...

How Be You?

Reaching the middle of the month of January and wondering how you BE? What I mean by that is "what are you thinking", "what are you believing", "what are you saying", "what are you doing", and "what's your attitude?" Those are what we call "being". We say that is what gives you your experience of life. What you are thinking, believing, saying, doing and what your attitude is, IS your life! What I notice is that sometimes my thoughts lead me towards sadness and separation and the good thing is I NOTICE it! Once I notice it then I can actually hand pick some new thought, one that leads we towards fulfillment and connection.... Sure I can stay with my original thought, but why would I choose that? See I do have a choice! That is the good news.
So what thoughts are you choosing? Are your thoughts creating a life you love? Are your thoughts empowering you and whatever you are up to? If so, great. If not, choose other thoughts... ones that lead towards happiness.
Thank you for being YOU.
Have a great day.
Love, Terces

Thank you Terces for having allowed me to share it! Thank you for all the inspiration and for rocking this world! :)

You all can read Terce's blog HERE, and you sure can learn more about Cafe Gratitude and Workshops on their official website. Something is connecting myself to these people and their way to see things. I promise myself to make it to attend to one of their workshops one day... hopefully in a very close futur!
I am asking for this. Let's make my thoughts empowering me to make this to happen! ;)
HAVE A JOYFUL DAY! ☼

Sharing recipes! YAY!

My roomate and I subscribed to CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) for the very first time this year. Yesterday, we went to pick up our basket at the delivery point, and we brought back a full basket of a wide variety of yummy organic veggies at the appartment. We got super excited by the idea of all the healthy meals we will have the chance to prepare this week!

In our basket, we got beets for the first time, and this will allow me to prepare my favorite raw food recipe. Then I though, why not sharing it with all of you?! It already has been published on the web last april, because of my participation to a food challenge proposed by SuperForester Heather and her sister Wendy, creators of the lovely blog Little Foodies, so here is the link :

http://little-foodies.blogspot.com/2010/04/rising-to-real-food-challenge-marie-eve.html

And because I did a mistake in placing back all the veggies in the basket for the picture (we got a lettuce, not a Kale), now I can also share with you an other recipe! Haha! It is a really delicious cabbages salad that I learned to prepared when I took my Raw Food classes with my teacher and great friend Nadine.

Cabbages salad

Equal parts of :
Shredded red cabbage
Shredded Kale
Green Lentils Sprouts
To taste:
Nutritional yeast Angevita (very rich in complex B vitamins, and taste a bit cheesy)
Mediterranean Dressing

Mix all ingredients.

As an aside note to this great recipe: For any salad containing cabbage, you should put the dressing several hours ahead and refrigerate. Since cabbage is hard, it takes longer to really get dressed by the taste of the dressing. Also, you might know that cruciferous vegetables (cabbage, broccoli, ect.) are good anti-carcinogenic.

Mediterranean Dressing

1/2 cup Olive oil
4 tablespoons Balsamic vinegar
2-4 cloves Chopped garlic
4 teaspoon Basil
4 teaspoon Origano
1 teaspoon Marjoram
To taste:
Bragg (liquid Aminos)
Freshly ground pepper

Mix all ingredients. You can keep the dressing for months in the refrigerator, but think about to take it out ahead of the fridge, to let it return to liquid, and mix well.

Look at all those beautiful colors! Aren't these pics opening up your appetite? ;)
Now, I guess I can ask you, dearest readers, to feel free to send in your favorite recipes of healthy meal! Let's see what we can share! Enjoy preparing refreshing food this summer!
LOVE AND FRESH BREEZES! ☼

Weekend updates

Okay! I promissed updates about this huge camping event I attended to… but what to say? Han! That has been a way, WAY, bigger and crazy event than I was imagining, that’s for sure! And I’ll be attending to it next year, that's another pretty sure point! ;)

The site was amazing and the organizers have done an incredible job to make in sort that the 800 of super nice fellows present there (yes, you’ve well read: we were approximatively 800 people! I know, it’s crazy!) can have much fun and do camping there.

I went with my brother and 5 other great friends of ours. And thanks to them, we were camping in the VIP part, further in the woods. We installed our tent in circle with a wide tarpaulin over, where we could gather and have lunches and great talks in the middle. We left the city on Friday in a big rain (after a week of crazy heat waves, of course rain had to fell down at the exact moment we were leaving do do camping! Ha!), but we got chance that during the weekend, the sun ended up to come out, to let us enjoying to swim in the refreshing river!

Music was playing 24 hours a day for 4 days (but I've been there 3 days), in different parts of the site. At the some kind of "medium intensity" stage, I discovered a DJ called Equanimous, making Psy-trance electro music. He waked me up slowly with a really sweet music on sunday morning. I would have liked to share his music with you, but I have not been able to find anything from him on the net yet… I’ll keep paying attention and let you know! For right now, I could just give you a pretty far taste of what it was: it was kind of starting with the sweet music of a some kind of indian chanting, like this one that I love:

And then it was slowly mixed into a psy-trance music. An awesome waking up, I can tell you!

This was my first time of participating to a huge event like this. I'm super tired to had almost no sleep, but I’ve enjoyed it so much! We made lots of new friends, which I’ll probably see again soon in another upcoming super cool event, since I’m going to do camping at the Quebec’s Rainbow Gathering! YAAY!! What a super busy and so exciting summer time! :)

HAVE A GREAT WEEK EVERYONE!

The sound of love - Let's Live For Today - The Grass Roots

Let's continue in the same nostalgia than the last post on this serie of lovely videos.

I'm born in 1979, so this is way before me, but I used to hear that song regularly in my childhood, because my daddy was (and still is) listening oldies only, while driving us into one of his collectible vintage cars.
Enjoy your day, by living it for today!
LOVE

I want it magical!

Last week has been marked by my 31st anniversary. That week has not been quite different than the 51 preceding ones. Except for the proudness I felt in looking behind, to this past year, to choices I made, to the changes I’ve been proceeding to. I did much, I’ve been strong. This last year has been one of discovering and opening. Yeah: of opening, definitely! It is the first one that I've been entirely devoting to myself (with some wanderings and misleadings! But who does not?). And how all this have been profitable to me!

What made me think about all this? The days surrounding my birthday, I’ve been so well surrounded by so many and so great friends, that I would not have been so blind as not to see how great has been this last year! Plus, on the day of my birthday, I woke up with my beloved brother, I've been wonderfully surprised by my roomate Claude-Emilie and by Maude, an other friend that is living with us for the summer, and I had someone to think to. What more can I ask for?

THANK YOU, MY DEAREST FRIENDS! I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!

Thus, while going through all those great thoughts, I took decisions :
Let’s make the next 52 upcoming weeks (and which will make up all my 32nd year) to be the greatest EVER! Let’s make it wild, let’s make it MAGICAL! Yaay!

Here is an other decision I took : I won’t open my own raw food café. I have an other idea about what to do with those skills and that passion, but I will reveal it in time (I'm still to brew it). The fact that I feel now that I can do something else having the same impact, without mortgaging the next 10 years of my life (and the fact that I moved to Montreal), has something to do with the fact that I’ve put the project aside for the past two months and didn’t worked on it at all.

Instead, for the next upcoming weeks, let’s concentrate on :
1) finding a job
2) getting rid of at least half of my materials

Yaaay! I’m so excited! Once these two things will be sorted in the « mission completed » file, then I’ll be good to start proceeding to get closer to what will make me happy to do with my life, in other words : to get closer from a project for my lifetime. How does it sounds? GREEEAAAT! :)

Without further ado, let’s start all that! Well… after the weekend, ‘cause another cool thing is coming up this weekend : I am going to a huge event, which is called the Space Gathering, to do camping for 3 days in the woods, with at least two hundred of fun fellows. Yaay! www.psychedelic-traveller.net/Space_Gathering
I’ll tell you more about it when I’ll be back!

HAVE AN AMAZING WEEKEND, EVERYONE!
LOVE AND SUNSHINE!

Let's save this Gulf!

I have something to propose you.

Many experiments have been made and the proof no longer needs to be done: our energy is very powerful when we are very confident and sincere. For those who are less familiar with this type of experimentations, you can find a lot of documentation on (among others) Dr. Masaru Emoto's researches, which concern the characteristics of water and how it physically responds to emotions.

Currently, most of us feel the emotion of anger above all, when we consider what is happening in the Gulf. The emotion is justified, however we may be of greater help to our planet and to its every living forms, if sincerely, with strength and humility, we send out our best energies.

Thus, let's leave aside the small demonstrations (such as those on plants, water droplets or rice). It is time to implement our powerful energy at a very large scale. The ocean needs us. Let's give it the love needed to heal itself.

This week, I received an email that made me think a lot, and which brought me to ask for your help. This email was suggesting a prayer. On my side, I'm proposing a Worldwide Meditation, the "Metta bhavana" (loving-kindness) kind. Depending on your possibilities, take a half hour to an hour, once or several times a day (the important is the strength and sincerity you'll put into), sit and meditate. Metta bhavana is the most universally beneficial form of discursive meditation, and can be practiced in any conditions. It is usually done in different stages, but for the specific cause, let's concentrate on the final stage instead: direct your sincere wishes of love and healing to the ocean, more specifically to the Gulf of Mexico and its inhabitants. "May all beings be rid of suffering. May all beings be happy".

Since any kind of sincere and massive sendings, no matter the way you choose to do it, will have its effect, I still pass on the prayer that has been sent to me, which was proposed by Emoto himself. Maybe some of you will prefer this way:

"I am sending the energy of love and gratitude

to the waters and all the living creatures in Gulf of Mexico.

To the water, whales, dolphins, pelicans, fishes,

shellfishes, planktons, corals, algae

and all creatures in our Gulf of Mexico:

I apologize.

Please forgive me.

Thank you.

I love you."

Be convinced that we are not so helpless. It is even though the opposite! If we can not travel to give a hand directly on the site, please know that our combined energies, by daily meditation or prayer practiced several times a day with great determination, can literally change the course of things! No need to know how this takes place. Just recognize that the power of love is greater than any other active power in the Universe!

Do not hesitate to spread around the world this invitation to a Worldwide Meditation, or the prayer suggested by Dr. Emoto. Let's act with serious and make, by ourselves, that cleansing of the ocean to come true!

Begging you to implement yourself with serious in this great role.
YOURS IN THE UNIFICATION OF THE POWER TO THE LOVEFUL,
MARIE-EVE ♥

Thx to Jon and bA

for this last

brilliant

assembly of words

The sound of love - Somewhere Over The Rainbow - Israel Kamakawiwo

I have to tell you one interesting fact: I have not seen any rainbows for years and years here, but on my recent trip to Kauai, I saw tons of them, and even double rainbows! This island has something really special! And this next incredible thing also happened, which made my jaw dropping and my mind blowing:

During our main day of planting, a really good rain fell on Zero One, but we simply continued to plant, with a big smile plastered on our face. One of us suddenly exclaimed: "A rainbow on Zero One!" What? Yes! A very bright rainbow was ending right there on the land! -Have you ever saw the end of a rainbow? Not me, until that unique day!- The one and only thought that came to me was that the land of Zero One had just been blessed, that an energy was trying to tell us: "Your work is important and it will bear fruits. Thank you!"

And now that I am thinking about this, it makes me think about this beautiful and really appropriate song.

It also reminds me my childhood, dreaming of banging my heels and find myself traveling automatically, as in The Wizard of Oz. Oh, how I'd love to bang my heels and return in Kauai right now! ;)

HAVE A WONDERFUL AND COLORFUL DAY, EVERYONE!

P.S. See how this man have been -and still is, in a way- loved! Funerals should always be as beautiful as this one. A celebration.
PEACE

Zero One : A taste of paradise.

I’m just coming back from a too short and so sweet adventure! For twelve days, I’ve been experiencing gardening on a just-getting-started permaculture land in Kauai. This land is called Zero One. At this very moment, three lovely people are living there in permanence: Jackson, Agustin and Mea, who have been such good hosts, and became good friends!

I said I’ve been experiencing gardening, but it has been so much more! It’s even more about pure and simple friendship and abundance. Abundance of food and of beauties from Mother Nature, and abundance of love and joyful moments, from such a giver community. Everyday has brought its lot of awe moments. I've simply fallen in love. With the island, with the people, with the way I was living it.

Permaculture is a type of agriculture that reproduces the relationship patterns occurring in natural ecologies. Its approach maximizes the results and minimizes the efforts of work, while providing for a human settlement's needs. See my previous post concerning permaculture HERE!

Permaculture takes an observation time equaling the working time and the enjoying time. It is one third of each, and oh, how we love that! It takes observing time to identify the natural resources given by the earth, and the needs of the land and of its inhabitants. But when comes the time to work and once the system is launched, things change so quickly, and the main word is “abundance”! And how we love this too! It is a give and take relationship with Mother Nature. She gives us a good soil, we plant it, she waters it, we harvest its results and feed her back with the yummy wastes, and it all start again. Full circle. Permaculture usually makes babies: it most of the time becomes a similar relationship of give and take with the neighborhood as well. What goes around comes around! Live in peace and harmony with every kinds of beings surrounding you, give them love without any expectations for returns, and watch out how you’ll be fulfilled with happiness!

Mama Felicia, from the home school garden Akamai Backyard, teaching us how to prepare and replant the Taro, a native plant, from which we can cook the root.

The team, leaving Akamai Backyard with all the Felicia's gifts to Zero One's gardens. Thank you Felicia!

Thus, Zero One is just popping out right now. It has had its first observation time, and I’ve been arriving there right into the real big “action time”! While I’ve been there, in just a couple of days, we created so much! Take a look to Jackson’s post RIGHT HERE: I promise you’ll be amazed! One day, we received a truck load of 30 cubic yards of compost and mulch, which we transformed, almost by magic, into two big and three medium gardens, plus into a couple more of smallest ones all around some trees. And how all this happened? In only five days or so, while connecting with some other friends and neighbors who came by to give a hand, on their way to the beach with their surfboards, and by using no machinery nor electric tools!! Isn’t it wonderful?! Just using our hands, our heart, shovels, forks, a wheel barrel and a "oo bar", which is a tool (like a heavy metal rod) used by the natives to dig and plant. It felt so good to have done all that in listening to the birds singing, to the wind blowing and sometimes the thin rain falling. Aaaaah! We could hear the enjoyment of each of us by the sound of our deep breath intakes or singings/whistlings. Nobody has been rushing, we all had so much fun in doing it and we shared a lot. Each day, we even had time to go to the beach, to practice our balance on the "slack-line", to go in town for some special needs, or to go for a walk of harvests (everywhere we were going, fruits trees were surrounding us: mangos, papayas, litchis, passion fruits, bananas. What have I said before? ABUNDANCE!! Yes!).

The Chalice garden (at its first step) is the first and biggest garden I've been working on. 

The first step to make your new garden: a few layers of cardboard (best if chickens have been previously pooping on it!). Give it a good shower, then cover it with green wastes and/or dried palm leaves. Cover it with a layer of compost, then with a layer of mulch. Ideally, repeat these two last layers if you are planting veggies that need a deep rooting. Finish it all by emphazing the outlines with nice logs or rocks. There is your new garden, as quick as to snap fingers, without any digging! Wow, that feels good, man! :D

The WiFi garden

I feel so much recharged and healthy! And I am so confident into a much better future! My role is not only to keep doing my best to do my part in this universe, but also to convince you about how much we would all gain in starting permaculture lands everywhere around us, across the world! How we would all gain in producing no pollution, and even working on reducing the one made by others. How we would all gain in generating NO WASTE (yeah, this is one more amazing fact on Zero One: the production of waste is ZERO! Damn, it feels so good!), and in producing compost. Gain in buying and eating locally and organic. Gain in making wise choices for our purchases, to recycle or compost every single little thing. How many wins are in this situation, tell me? I assure you that it doesn’t take more time and energy, and it even makes you feel so fulfilled! It improves our world, it improves relationships, it reduces our life cost, and it even gives us the time to enjoy life! What more can we ask for?

Do not wait! It only belongs to each of us to use those great powers! Let’s change things and make a better world. Each of us! With our own two hands… and our heart!

PEACE. LOVE. HAPPINESS.
MAY WE ALL LIVE IN THE ABUNDANCE!

Forever grateful to Jesse, Jackson, Mea and Justin to have given me the opportunity to live and share this experience! Thank you Felicia to have shared all your knowledge!
Other thank yous go to you, Tiana and Amanda, for your friendship and your contagious joyfulness! JP, Riki, Stephanie, Indi (who else in "i" am I missing?!): you all are special and lovely people!
I love you all! You all have been such givers! Aloha and Mahalo! ♥

Quebec's National Day

Heyo! I'm coming back in Quebec just in time to celebrate our national day, the Saint-Jean-Baptiste! And what a great day this will be! I'm so in! Completely fresh from my super amazing trip to Zero One, a wonderful land of permaculture in Hawaii. I'll let you know more about my trip in a next post, I promise it's coming up! But today, let's celebrate the Quebec! Yaayy!!

Saint-Jean-Baptiste is love sharing at a wide scale for the people here. I would love my province to feel like this on every single day! I'm working this way, but I'm just a little grain... but still one! Trying to sand off the kinda stiffy side of my fellows, and make smile to be contagious.

For the occasion, let's share this video of a local group:

I'm out now (wearing my blue shirt, of course!), for so much fun, smiles and love spreading!

MUCH LOVE TO YOU ALL!

The sound of love - Say Hey (I Love You) - Michael Franti & Spearhead

Hey there! Let's post one more song before I fly, for what promises to be the greatest trip of my life! No pressure Jackson: it's most because I've almost never traveled! ;)

The sound of love is a series of posts, sharing videos that spread the love, so here it goes again...

Awweee! High-five to Michael Franti for having created this marvellous song and video! A big thank also goes to Tyler and SuperForester Mathew, both from The Sun Shines On, where I first watched it!

Sing and dance this "sticky" song the whole day long, my dear friends!
P.S: I'll tell you more about this trip when I'll be back!
LOVE

Read this!

Two or three months ago, I've sent this to many close friends, and I even shared it on Facebook, but I don't know why I never though about sharing this here on my blog? So here it is! If you have one thing to read today, for a first or the umpteenth time (we always need some reminds), it is this one:

The SuperForest Humanifesto

The SuperForest Humanifesto

What is going to save the human race?

Please.
Thank you.

Three words that will totally change this planet.
More than solar power. More than recycling. More than wind energy.

Why?

Because if we all started treating the people and things that we interact with every day with respect and compassion, the effects would ripple through every aspect of our lives, transforming society.

Our parents taught us the manners “rule-sets” that we use every day, and as a result, we feel that we have (through years of introspection) begun walking the path towards enlightenment. Our manners dictate the way we treat the external world, the Environment. We feel that it is primarily our manners that dictate our success as humans.

Folks talk about wanting to save the “Environment”, and that conjures up images of bubbling brooks and unspoiled forests. But “the Environment” isn’t just greenery and pretty scenery. It’s our slums, our airports, our houses, our supermarkets.
The Environment is everything that disappears when you close your eyes.

If you want to improve it, you must begin with what you see and encounter every single day of your life.

Before we can set about elevating our present society from a carbon-based one to a solar-electric one, knowing full well that solar-electric decentralized power means a higher quality of life for all, we must first pause and ask ourselves: Why? What is worth saving?

Human Consciousness.

Our gift and curse as humans is our incredible consciousness. We are aware, and that is the greatest and worst thing we’ve got going for us. Because we can clearly see how well we could be living, how politely we could be treating one another, how incredible life could be; we feel it is our duty to delight and inform our fellow humans in the hopes of creating a better world.

There is no reason every human on Earth could not have access to:
Clean Water
Nutritious Un-modified Food
Shelter
Education
Open Source Communication
Freedom from Oppression and Fascism

But, as is painfully obvious, most humans don’t have those things.
Most humans don’t have two of the six!

They could, but they don’t.

Why?

Bad Manners.

Nearly every religion this planet has yet produced has as one of its tenets the idea that to be happy, you must treat others as you yourself would hope to be treated.
A failure in this respect is simply bad form.

When a company decides to dump its waste into a river that others downstream use for drinking water, that is bad manners.

When a society chooses to isolate its citizenry in prisons and not offer any chance at rehabilitation, that is bad manners.

When a person decides to walk into a school and open fire on their classmates, that is extremely bad manners.

That is why we MUST START NOW.

All new generations must be schooled in the art of good manners if we are to survive, let alone flourish, as a species.

Try your hardest to treat others as you hope they would treat you, and actively look for ways to help the people around you. Do this from a pure place within you and watch the effects ripple outward!

Why?

Because so few are doing it.

Good manners make you stand out like a struck match in a dark room.

Three Essentials:

Make eye contact with anyone you interact with. Smiling is optional but highly encouraged.
Use the words “Please” and “Thank You” as often as you can.
Seek out ways to improve the lives of others. This can be as small as carrying someones bag up a flight of stairs, or holding a door open.

Do these three things and your life will change immeasurably. And you will begin to change the lives of those who come into contact with you in a measurable and positive way.

We are filled with optimism and hope.

Thank you for reading this.

Team SuperForest

* * *

I told you! Right? Now that you have read this, don't you feel like fulfilled with optimism? That you would like to go out on the street and smile wide at everybody you're passing by? Well, please do! You are loved, and you are love itself: give a part of it! :)
And, of course, the next thing to do is to share this with everybody that you think they could be interested in!

For this wonderful texte in any other language (translated by some kindful superforesters - they are all kindful! - from all around the world), click on the link below:
http://teamsuperforest.org/superforest/2008/04/23/the-superforest-humanifesto-2/

MUCH LOVE TO EVERYONE OF YOU!